Using artificial intelligence, satellite observations, and climate model projections, a team of researchers from Switzerland and Belgium calculate that for every tenth of a degree of increase in global air temperature, an average of nearly 9,000 meteorites disappear from the surface of the ice sheet
34% of Antarctic Ice Shelves Could Disappear as a Result of Global Warming
Written by AZoCleantechApr 13 2021
A new study conducted jointly by the Univerisyt of Liege (Belgium) and the University of Reading (England) suggests that 34% of the Antarctic ice shelves could disappear by the end of the century if the planet warms up by 4 °C compared with pre-industrial temperatures. This melting could lead to a significant rise in sea levels. This study is published in the journal
Geophysical Research Letters.
Since the early 2000s, scientists have observed that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass at a rate that is accelerating. The ice sheet is a very thick expanse of ice that can cover an entire continent. There are only two ice sheets on Earth: the Greenland ice sheet, which is limited to the land cover, and the Antarctic ice sheet, which extends beyond the continent into the ocean to form large floating platforms.
Global Warming Could Lead to the Melting of More Than a Third of Antarctic Ice Shelves Details
Share This
Since the early 2000s, scientists have observed that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass at a rate that is accelerating.
Since the early 2000s, scientists have observed that the Antarctic ice sheet is losing mass at a rate that is accelerating. The ice sheet is a very thick expanse of ice that can cover an entire continent. There are only two ice sheets on Earth: the Greenland ice sheet, which is limited to the land cover, and the Antarctic ice sheet, which extends beyond the continent into the ocean to form large floating platforms. “These ice shelves act like dams and keep the ice on the continent, explains Christoph Kittel, a researcher at the ULiège Climatology Laboratory (SPHERES research unit / Faculty of Science) and co-author of the study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters (1). Without these platforms, huge amounts
Global warming could lead to the melting of more than a third of Antarctic ice shelves eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Pexels
A new study is shedding light on just how much ice could be lost around Antarctica if the international community fails to urgently rein in planet-heating emissions, bolstering arguments for bolder climate policies.
The study, published Thursday in the journal
Geophysical Research Letters, found that over a third of the area of all Antarctic ice shelves including 67% of the area on the Antarctic Peninsula could be at risk of collapsing if global temperatures soar to 4°C above pre-industrial levels.
An ice shelf, as NASA explains, “is a thick, floating slab of ice that forms where a glacier or ice flows down a coastline.” They are found only in Antarctica, Greenland, Canada, and the Russian Arctic and play a key role in limiting sea level rise.